KAIMONI*

CHAPTER 4

Steve glanced at the display on the dash of his hire car- 3.15am. He was driving slowly along empty roads, heading for the campsite where Danny was last seen. He familiarised himself with the landscape as he went, SEAL autopilot fully engaged. He was tired but no way could he sleep.

A short while after the tearful reunion with Grace, Steve had spent several hours with Miller and his team reviewing tactics and evidence, reading through the dozens of statements that had been taken.

He had to admit, ruefully, he was impressed- the investigation appeared thorough and professional. But that was no comfort when they had literally no leads, no positive lines of enquiry, other than the second missing person. And, as with Danny, Selena Ritchie seemed to have vanished off the face of the planet. Nothing had been heard from her, no contact had been made with her family or friends.

And, as Danny had told Steve himself, the idea of her having stolen the missing artefacts seemed increasingly unlikely. She was a decent, hard-working student who seemed about as likely to steal artefacts from the dig as Grace herself. Her parents were in Orkney too, making tearful appeals to match Grace's and searching themselves as any decent parents would.

Then a late-night text from Grace's grandmother, Emily, had taken Steve to the hotel room she was sharing with Grace. The girl was distraught and far from able to sleep.

Steve sat in an armchair and held her in his lap, allowing the exhausted grandmother to sleep. They had talked in low voices about the man they both missed, exchanging reminiscences and desires until, finally, Grace had fallen asleep in his arms. He had dozed briefly, then gently laid Grace in her bed, tucked the covers around her and slipped out of the room. He had no intention of even trying to sleep. Not yet.

Steve's destination, the dig campsite, was located a couple of miles past the excavation site at Brodgar in the low hills of Harray.

It was still light- the summer solstice was fast approaching and already nighttime never quite made it to Orkney thanks to its northern latitude and the tilt of the earth. Instead, for a handful of hours either side of midnight, an eerie half-light slowly descended then ebbed away, replaced by hazy pastel pinks and oranges heralding dawn and true daylight.

Steve followed the main road from Kirkwall to Stromness, turning off just after the prominent mound of the Neolithic tomb at Maes Howe and heading northwards. The island seemed to be sleeping- there was no traffic and no wind. He had the illogical but uneasy feeling that he was the only person in the world.

As the landscape opened out in front of him he found he had to stop the car in the middle of the road. He got out and stood, staring.

Opening out in front of him in the pale oranges and pinks of the impending Orcadian dawn was a landscape from another time.

The fenced roadway, a subtle modern intrusion, wound its way along a long, narrow bridge of land between two inland lakes- the Loch of Harray and the Loch of Stenness. Mist rose slowly from the bodies of water, drifting loosely and adding to the otherworldly feel.

A single standing stone stood at the narrowest point of the land bridge- the width of the single track road and no more- a lone, towering sentinel several metres high. Two stone circles, one to the north and one to the south of the gargantuan monolith, lay a short distance away where the land between the lochs was somewhat wider.

Steve recognised them instantly- the fragmentary remains of the Stones of Stenness and the simply vast Ring of Brodgar. Both were situated on circular man-made platforms surrounded by impressive banks and ditches, mammoth feats of engineering in themselves. Their existence was plain evidence that when the monuments had been constructed literally thousands of years ago, way back in the Neolithic which was the stone age, for goodness' sake, someone had been in control. Someone had been able to convince, conscript or enslave the surrounding population to carry out their will. To pour blood, sweat and tears into digging ditches, quarrying stones, dragging them for miles to the chosen site and planting them deep into the earth for…what? Now so far removed from that time, it was only possible to make educated guesses.

Squinting slightly, Steve could just make out the neat piles of spoil marking the location of the dig at the Ness of Brodgar. As if the site wasn't impressive enough, over the preceding few years archaeologists from the local university had begun to dig in what had appeared to be an empty field between the Ring of Brodgar and the lone standing stone, known as the Watch Stone. What they had found was nothing short of incredible. Remains of drystone buildings with walls up to 4 metres thick clustered within an enormous defensive wall. The buildings contained a huge array of bizarre artefacts and so much animal bone that the scientists had estimated that hundreds of cattle had been slaughtered in one go.

The site was a defended ritual complex spanning the land bridge. It was a power centre, controlling access to this extraordinary group of monuments. Back through the mists of time it was the setting for unknown religious practices, probably bizarre and savage to the modern mind.

Steve could see why even Danny, undoubtedly the most cynical man he had ever met, had been sucked in by the spell of the place. Standing there and seeing the cluster of structures which had meant so much, had signified so much power, was genuinely awe-inspiring. The atmosphere was extraordinary.

It was almost like travelling back in time.

…..

They never spoke, never said a word. They just watched, waiting. He couldn't escape them. Danny watched them back, trying to find a chink in their system.

He could see ten of them from the hollow he had taken some semblance of refuge in, and could safely assume the line continued behind the low rise behind him, encircling him entirely. The closest man was perhaps 100 yards from him and they stood around the same distance apart.

Occasionally another figure would trudge into view, taking the place of one who had apparently earned some rest and who would then trudge away, retracing the footsteps of his substitute, retreating to…somewhere. There was no convenient grand 'changing of the guard' when attention might come away from him.

Danny had been scared for so long he was getting bored for goodness sake. Why couldn't they just come to him, try to finish it? Let him take some of them out? He knew he was answering his own question. But there was nothing stopping them felling him with an arrow from a distance. He had been out in the open repeatedly yet they had only fired when it looked like he might break through their cordon. They wanted him to live, for now at any rate. But why? What did they want with him?

Anger born of frustration began to rise up and suddenly Danny stood, holding his hands out to the side.

"Come on! Enough! Come and get me you freaks!" he yelled, then roared unintelligibly in frustration as not one figure so much as twitched.

"Come on! What are you waiting for?" he screamed, so loud that his voice broke on the last word. He picked up a stone and lobbed it in the direction of the closest man, not that he had any chance of striking anyone from that distance.

A distant shout suddenly ended the one-sided exchange. The word was unrecognisable to him but the commanding tone was not. Whatever the meaning it caused Danny's guards to spring into action, their weapons raised in front of them. As one they started striding towards him.

He backed up sharply, then whirled around and ran the short distance to the crest of the low rise behind him. He stumbled to a halt. The men were closing in on him from all directions. He had nowhere to go.

He staggered round in a circle, gasping in fear, then stumbled over a loose stone. Glancing down at it, determination to fight to the end took over and he picked it up. Looking up again at his antagonisers, he swore loudly then launched himself, running full pelt, bearing the stone above his head in his right hand and fully expecting the searing pain of an arrow to fell him before he ever had the chance to make contact.

But it didn't come. As he reached his hastily-selected target, a slender man only a couple of inches taller than him, he realised with a start he had to be a teenager, and by no means a hardened fighter. There was, unmistakably, fear in the youthful blue eyes. The weapon pointing Danny's way- not a bow…a spear?- wavered and, at the last minute was thrown to one side as the young man raised his hands to try to stop the human cannon ball catapulting towards him.

Taken aback by the true nature of his target, Danny's raised hand faltered and he diverted at the last moment from his intended deadly blow to one that merely grazed the side of Blue Eye's head. It was enough, the target falling to the side, stunned.

Danny never stopped moving. The paltry exchange, although astonishing given he had firmly expected to be making his last stand at that very moment, merely slowed him for an instant before he kept right on running. He was suddenly outside the cordon and the closest to freedom he'd been for days!

He made for the higher ground they had been keeping him away from, not letting himself wonder why he hadn't yet been shot.

He risked a glance back. They were giving chase, all of them, but running steadily not frantically. Somehow he had gained a lead of some thirty yards on the leaders.

An uneasy feeling came over him…it seemed as though they were okay with him running the direction he was going in, now. They wanted him to run this way now. But that made no sense, when they had kept him away from it for so long.

But he had to keep going, he had to keep running and maybe, just maybe, salvation of some sort might lie over the hill. As he hit the rising ground and began his ascent, his physical weakness after days of starvation and the injury to his head kicked in, only adrenaline forcing his trembling legs to continue. His chest burned as he climbed the steep slope, his feet tripping and sliding on the loose stones hidden beneath the carpet of heather. He had to keep going. He had to keep trying.

At the point of collapse, Danny fought his way the last few steps to the top of the hill. He scrubbed a hand roughly across his eyes, trying to focus on what lay in the valley beyond, not willing to believe what his bleary vision was telling him. He stumbled, falling to his knees. "No!" he sobbed out as he finally accepted the truth of the scene in front of him.

Far below the high ground where Danny knelt, gasping for breath, were two lochs. On the narrow bridge of land between them were two stone circles, a single gargantuan monolith and a cluster of massive drystone buildings within a huge outer wall.

In that moment he knew exactly where he was. He knew it well, but not like this. It was Brodgar. Minus road, minus fences, minus the little modern bungalow near the excavation site. It was Brodgar as it would have been.

He stared in utter horror. There was no denying what had happened anymore- and he was totally screwed.

"No," he whispered again, feeling utterly helpless.

A noise behind him made him turn his head, then try to scramble backwards. Blue Eyes and his entourage had caught up. He briefly tried to get his legs underneath him, but he couldn't find the strength. He froze, stuck sitting on his backside, legs splaying in front of him, entirely vulnerable.

Now Blue Eyes stood over him, his bearded compatriots slowly falling into place at his side. The youth no longer looked scared- he was pissed. Danny understood-he had made him into the weak link, had shown him up in front of his peers. It looked like the effects of humiliation transcended the generations. Danny's eyes dropped to the spear Blue Eyes had apparently retrieved after their encounter. The carefully crafted flint spearhead now hovered rock-steady two feet in front of him, pointing squarely between his eyes.

Incapable of fighting and quaking with fear inside, Danny was shocked to his very core by the unfolding situation. But no way was he ready to die yet. Danny's temper might have been quick, but he was far from stupid and he recognised the only route left open to him in an instant. He tried to communicate. He tried to look non-threatening. He held his hands out to the side, palms open, and smiled gently, looking directly into those angry blue eyes. "Please….please, I don't know what you want. I'm …..lost. I don't want to fight you."

Blue Eyes blinked a couple of times. He grunted out a word that, of course, Danny couldn't understand. Danny smiled softly in response, hoping beyond hope he could get through to him.

He held the gaze of the man in front of him. The blue eyes burned with a fierce intelligence. They seemed to look into his soul. Then the expression softened a little, an edge of doubt creeping in. A small, uncertain smile came to the younger man's lips and the spear lowered a touch, the end wavering.

Danny's heart was racing, beating so loud he was sure it could be heard. He hardly dared to hope but he felt maybe, just maybe, he was making some headway.

Blue Eyes turned to the man to his right, uttering a gruff phrase, the tone suggesting it was a question. Danny glanced at the second man. His expression was hard as he barked a harsh reply. Blue Eyes nodded then turned back to Danny with an expression of regret.

"Please.." Danny tried, heart sinking.

Blue Eyes met Danny's eyes one last time, nodded once, then raised his spear above his shoulder. He pulled it back a fraction then, yelling ferociously, drove it downwards into Danny's thigh.

Danny yelled out in agony, clutching desperately at the shaft of the spear. Blue Eyes maintained the pressure, shifting to stand over Danny and putting his full weight into it.

White hot pain engulfed Danny, his mind reverberating with the echoes of his own screams as his shaking hands tried in vain to push against the relentless pressure of the spear. He opened his eyes and looked up, his tear-glazed vision failing to block out the detached, clinical fascination now dominating the expression of the man he had fleetingly thought might be his saviour.

NOTES

* Kaimoni- Hawaiian for 'demon'

The sites at Brodgar are all real and form part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site known as 'The Heart of Neolithic Orkney'.